A circuit arrangement to operate low-pressure discharge lamps is described in European Patent Application 0 395 776, Krummel. However, it has the disadvantage, first, that higher costs and a greater space requirement are created as a result of additional limiter diodes at the lamp base point, along with a necessarily fast bridge rectifier and an expensive radio interference suppressor filter on the alternating voltage side. Secondly, the circuit is also less suitable for relatively low mains voltages combined with high lamp burning and igniting voltages, since the full resonant capacitance is parallel to the lamp and consequently the converted idle output--which is necessary to generate the high burning and igniting voltages--undergoes a very major modulation as a function of the instantaneous value of the rectified mains voltage.